Did the Countrywide Lockdown act like a catalyst in turning a cyclone into a Super-cyclone AMPHAN?

Abstract

Amid the CoVID-19 pandemic and country-wide lockdown, the super-cyclone Amphan collided with the eastern coast of India, hitting mainly the Indian state of West Bengal. This article tried to find an answer to such a devastating super cyclone during the pandemic-related lockdown. Although lockdown restricts almost all types of industrial emission known for increasing the average surface temperature, the temperature profile indicated no indication of temperature fall during the entire lockdown. Moreover, the temperature profile indicated that during the lockdown period the average sea surface temperature was much higher than the last five years. This suggested that this unexpected increase in sea-surface temperature might play a major role in the formation of super cyclone Amphan. This temperature increase could be attributed to the sudden lowering of criteria pollutants like aerosol concentration due to lockdown. This might have an indirect impact on the formation of a super-cyclone as it increased the radiative budget of the earth. The increment in the radiative budget might have increased sea surface temperature that caused the transformation of a cyclonic depression into a super-cyclonic storm Amphan.